Donetsk, Nov 7 — DAN. Liberation of the whole territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic will not guarantee total ceasefire on the part of Ukrainian forces, though it can help to considerably reduce the intensity of artillery attacks, Head of the DPR Office at the Joint Centre for Control and Coordination of issues related to Ukraine’s war crimes (JCCC) Ruslan Yakubov told the Donetsk News Agency.

“The specifics of weapons used by Ukraine which are actively supplied by NATO countries shows that even complete liberation of our territory does not guarantee total ceasefire, ” Yakubov said. “The LPR experience indicates that the enemy uses weapons that can cause damage in the Republic’s territory (such as high mobility artillery rocket systems with a firing range of up to 84 kilometers, HARM airborne missiles with a range of up to 120 km etc).”

“And yet, complete liberation of our territory will considerably reduce the intensity of attack and change the ranges of employed weapons, ” he noted.

The JCCC official also said that the liberation operation in the Republic’s territory is impeded by Ukrainian armed formations’ strongholds in residential areas. “Everybody knows, and there is much evidence that Ukrainian armed formations use civilians as a ‘human shield’ organizing firing positions in schools, hospitals and homes, ” Yakubov said.

The special military operation in Ukraine and Donbass began on February 24, 2022. Its objective is to free territories occupied by the Kiev regime. As of now, the Russian Federation controls practically the whole Lugansk People’s Republic and large parts of the DPR and the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions. High-intensity fighting is ongoing on the Artyomovsk, Avdeyevka and Ugledar axes.*jk